SRI AUROBINDO

Translations

from Sanskrit and Other Languages

II. From Bengali

Selected Poems of Chandidas

Appeal

Thy youth is but a noon, of night take heed,–

A noon that is a fragment of a day,

And the swift eve all sweet things bears away,

All sweet things and all bitter, rose and weed.

For others’ bliss who lives, he lives indeed.

But thou art pitiful and ruth shouldst know.

I bid thee trifle not with fatal love,

But save our pride and dear one, O my dove,

And heaven and earth and the nether world below

Shall only with thy praises peopled grow.

Life is a bliss that cannot long abide,

But while thou livest, love. For love the sky

Was founded, earth upheaved from the deep cry

Of waters, and by love is sweetly tied

The golden cordage of our youth and pride.

(Suggested by an old Bengali poem)